Specimens
of Pre-Shaksperean Drama.
Cambridge History of English Literature - 1908 - v06
Thus,
1 For the full title, which, if given above, would occupy a whole page, see biblio-
graphy. A very useful analysis of the contents of the book is to be found in Ward,
vol. I, pp. 241–3.
2 Thus the Table (40 pp. ), at the end of Histriomastic, forms, perhaps, the
best index to the whole controversy.
## p. 406 (#424) ############################################
406 The Puritan Attack upon the Stage
a
Plutarch, Horace and Cicero are found in company with the early
fathers as abhorrers of stage plays. This must not be taken as an
impeachment of Prynne's honesty. He was honest enough ; but
he often quotes at second hand, and, even when he had the
original before him, he was blinded by the force of zeal to anything
that conflicted with his argument - as what controversialist
is not?
Perhaps the most original thing about the book is its arrange-
ment. It is divided into two parts, and these, in turn, are sub-
divided into acts and scenes with an occasional chorus. This
dramatic setting, curious in a book written against the stage, was
intended to carry out the idea of The Actors Tragedie suggested
on the title-page; but, also, it was an extremely convenient form
for the purposes of the argument. The first act, for example,
naturally deals with the satanic origin of the theatre, while, in the
seventh, Prynne triumphantly marshals his mass of authorities
in seven different squadrons or scenes, according to period or
character, the whole being crowned with a chorus in which he
announces that none can withstand his 'all-conquering troopes. '
This plan of arrangement may owe something to Gosson's Playes
confuted in five Actions; but the execution and the details were
all Prynne's.
His book is the last of the series which we have to note.
Its size and elaboration, the supposed insult to the queen, the
celebrated trial and the sufferings of the author, must have
brought the topic of stage morality very much to the fore and
have greatly increased the bitterness of the puritan party. But
Histriomastix had no imitators. It had completely exhausted
the subject. Besides, it was now dangerous to write against the
theatre, since this involved the risk of offending royalty and of thus
falling into the inexorable hands of the high commission. Further
than this, events were fast drifting towards revolution, and the
minds of men were filled with other and greater matters than the
stage? Whether, as has been suggested, Prynne's attack did any-
thing to reform the stage, it would be extremely difficult to deter-
mine; and, in any case, the question is a somewhat idle one. Of
greater importance is the fact that the theatre was in a far from
prosperous condition immediately before its suppression, as is
clear from a curious little tract printed, in 1641, under the title
The Stage-Players Complaint.
1 This, probably, also accounts for the fact that Prynne's book, apparently, remained
unanswered until 1662, when Sir Richard Baker published his Theatrum Redivitum,
## p. 407 (#425) ############################################
The End of the Controversy
407
Monopolers are down, Projectors are down, the High Commission Court
is downe, the Starre Chamber is downe, and (some think) Bishops will be
downe and why should we then that are farre inferior to any of these not
justely feare that we should be downe too ?
Such is the burden of the author's tale, and the atmosphere of
impending disaster which pervades the tract appropriately culmi-
nates in the concluding words: From Plague, Pestilence and
Famine from Battel, Murder and Suddaine Death Good Lord
deliver us. ' Few contemporary documents give a better picture
of the gloom and sense of coming catastrophe that had come over
a large part of the nation at this juncture in our history. But the
words of the Litany were applicable to present needs and sorrows
as well as to future fears. The plague had been more than usually
violent since 1630, and, in consequence, the playhouses had been
shut for the greater part of each year. The net result of these
various factors in the situation was that the ordinance of
2 September 1642 for the total suppression of stage plays was
received, not only without surprise, but almost without attention.
In estimating parliament's reasons for this step, political consider-
ations should not be left out of account. The actor was now
hated, not only on account of his profession, but, also, as the
minion of the despot, and the passage just quoted shows that he
realised the fact well enough. Moreover, the stage, obviously, was
too dangerous an institution to be tolerated by any anti-royalist
government. Players were ‘malignants' almost to a man, and,
however efficient the censorship might be, the performance of an
apparently harmless play might easily develop into a demonstration
in favour of the king. Yet, for all this, we cannot doubt that the
main intentions of the act were moral. The stage was swept
away by the tide of puritan indignation and hatred, of which
we have been watching the rise.
It was not to be expected, however, that so drastic a measure
could be carried out without difficulty. Parliament found it
necessary in 1647 and, again, in 1648 to pass further and more
stringent ordinances against the stage, ordering all players to be
apprehended and publicly whipped, all playhouses to be pulled
down and any one present at a play to pay a fine of five shillings.
Protests were not wanting against this policy. In 1643, two tracts
appeared : one, The Actors Remonstrance, a humble request for
the restoration of acting rights in return for sweeping reforms,
which, incidentally, gives an interesting glimpse of what went on
behind the scenes of theatrical life; the other, The Players
## p. 408 (#426) ############################################
408 The Puritan Attack upon the Stage
Petition to the Parliament, a piece of satirical verse, which
mocked at the Rump under pretence of appealing to it. The
sauciness of the latter, however, was nothing to that of an un-
known person who, at the beginning of 1649, actually published
a book called Mr William Prynne, his defence of Stage-Playes.
or a Retraction of his former book. Needless to say, the in-
a
dignant victim of this effrontery at once issued a denial of the
charge?
We have now enumerated and described the chief documents
and events relating to the puritan campaign against the stage,
culminating in the victory of 1642. The controversy has never really
died out. It burst forth again in all its old vigour and with all
its characteristic pedantry at the end of the seventeenth century.
Curiously enough it was a high Anglican non-juror, Jeremy Collier,
upon whose shoulders the puritan mantle fell; and his example
was followed, thirty years later, by yet another Jacobite, William
Law, the author of A Serious Call. Even modern writers
have found it difficult to discuss the Elizabethan stage without
ardently defending the puritans who attacked it. Yet the in-
fluence which the early fathers, like distanţ planets, seemed
to exert upon every puritan in turn, the wholesale manner
in which each borrows the arguments and expressions of his pre-
decessor and, above all, the almost complete ignorance displayed
by a large proportion of the assailants as to the real character of
the institution they were attacking, combine to give the whole
discussion an air of academic unreality. This impression, perhaps,
is partly due to controversial methods which appealed forcibly to
the Elizabethan intelligence, but which, by exasperating the
modern reader, blind him to the genuine feeling that lies under
their antiquated and absurd forms. For there can be no doubt
whatever that puritan antipathy amounted to a fierce loathing,
of whose strength a generation living in blander times cannot
have any conception. In a word, the whole movement, from the
outset, was not one for reforming the theatre but for abolishing it.
Proposals for reform came rather from those who wrote in defence
of the theatre, and whose attitude, it may be observed, was, in one
sense, singularly in accord with that of their opponents. In
1 The fortunes of the players under the Commonwealth may be followed in
some detail in James Wright's Historia Histrionica 1699 (reprinted in Hazlitt's
Dodsley (vol. xv), and in Whitelocke's Memorials. It is, perhaps, worth noticing
here that, in 1658, William Cartwright found courage to reprint Heywood's Apology,
under the title an Actor's Vindication.
!
## p. 409 (#427) ############################################
General Aspects of the Controversy 409
the modern sense of the word, at least, they were puritans to
a man. The stage-hater stoutly maintained that the drama did
not and could not fulfil any ethical function. On the other hand,
Bavande, Wager, Lodge, Gager, Nashe and Heywood, one and
all, regarded the drama, first and foremost, as an engine for
moral instruction. That such a man as Heywood should express
himself thus, proves that he had scarcely more understanding than
Stubbes and Prynne of the real nature of the drama which he
represented. No one can pretend that Shakespeare and his fellow
playwrights troubled themselves about theories of conduct. The
defenders of the stage made pitiful attempts to justify their craft
upon moral principles; but, in admitting the subordination of art
to ethics, they had yielded their whole position. Had puritans
only studied the theatre more and the early fathers less, they
might, starting with the premisses which their antagonists gave
them, have made out a much better case for prosecution. They
had all the logic on their side. On the side of the apologists,
.
was all the commonsense-if they could only have seen it !
## p. 410 (#428) ############################################
BIBLIOGRAPHIES
GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
VOLS. V AND VI
It may be well, without attempting to do over again part of a task
admirably accomplished by Schelling, F. E. , in the Bibliographical Essay con-
tained in vol. 11 of his Elizabethan Drama, 1558-1642, Boston and New York,
1908, to point out that the bibliographies to the several chapters of the present
volume and its predecessor repeatedly refer to certain works which more or
less cover the whole of the period in question. These works will ordinarily
be cited in the separate bibliographies by the abbreviations added in italics to
the titles in the following lists.
I. COLLECTIONS OF PLAYS.
(This does not include series of volumes of which each contains the plays,
or a selection from the plays, of a single author. )
Amyot, T. and others. A Supplement to Dodsley's Old English Plays.
4 vols. 1853. (Amyot's Suppl. to Dodsley. )
Bang, W. Materialien zur Kunde des älteren englischen Dramas. Louvain,
1902, etc. (In progress. ) (Bang's Materialien. )
Brandl, A. Quellen des weltlichen Dramas in England vor Shakespeare.
Vol. Lxxx of Quellen u. Forschungen zur Sprach- u. Culturgesch, d.
German. Völker. Strassburg, 1898. (Brandls Quellen. )
Bullen, A. H. A Collection of Old English Plays. 4 vols. 1882-5. (Bullen's
Old English Plays. )
Old English Plays. New Series. 3 vols. 1887-90. (Bullen's Old
English Plays, N. S. )
Child, F. J. Four Old Plays. Cambridge, Mass. , 1848. (Four Old Plays. )
Collier, J. P. Five Old Plays illustrative of the early Progress of the
English Drama: The Conflict of Conscience; The Three Triumphs of
Love and Fortune; The Three Ladies of London; The Three Lords and
the Three Ladies of London; A Knack to Know a Knave. Ed. for the
Roxburghe Club. 1851. (Five Old Plays. )
Dilke, (Sir) C. W. Old English Plays; being a selection from the early
dramatic writers. 6 vols. 1814-5. (Dilke's 0. E. P. )
Dodsley's Old English Plays. Ed. Hazlitt, W. C. 15 vols. 1874-6. (Hazlitt's
Dodsley. )
Earlier editions:
A Select Collection of Old Plays. [Ed. by R. D. ) 12 vols. 1744.
(Dodsley (1744). )
## p. 411 (#429) ############################################
General Bibliography
411
A Select Collection of Old Plays. [By R. D. ) Ed. Reed, I. 12 vols.
1780. (Reed's Dodsley. )
A Select Collection of Old Plays. [By R. D. ) New ed. with additional
notes and corrections by the late Isaac Reed, Octavius Gilchrist
and the editor (John Payne Collier). 12 vols. 1825-7. (Collier's
Dodsley. )
Early English Drama Society, Publications of the. Ed. Farmer, J. S. 1906 f.
(E. E. D. Publ. )
Gayley, C. M. Representative English Comedies. With introductory essays,
notes &c. by various writers, under the editorship of C. M. Gayley. From
the beginnings to Shakespeare. Vol. 1. New York, 1903. (Gayley's
R. E. C. )
Hawkins, T. The Origin of the English Drama. 3 vols. Oxford, 1773.
(Origin of E. D. )
Malone Society, Publications of the. 1906, etc. (Malone S. Publ. )
Manly, J. M.
Specimens of Pre-Shaksperean Drama. With an intro-
duction, notes and glossary. Vols. I and 11. Boston, 1897-8. New ed.
1900-3. (Manly's Specimens. )
Old English Drama. 3 vols. 1830. (Old E. D. )
Scott, (Sir) Walter. Ancient British Drama. 3 vols. 1810. (Ancient B. D. )
Modern British Drama. 5 vols. 1811. (Modern B. D. )
Simpson, R. The School of Shakspere. 2 vols. 1878. (Simpson. )
Six Old Plays on which Shakespeare founded his Measure for Measure.
Comedy of Errors. The Taming of the Shrew. King John. King
Henry IV and King Henry V. King Lear. 2 vols. 1779. (Six Old
Plays. )
Tudor Facsimile Texts. Old Plays and other Printed and MS. Rarities.
Ed. Farmer, J. S. 43 vols. 1907, etc. [In progress. ] (Tudor Fac-
simile Texts. )
Lamb, Charles. Specimens of English Dramatic Poets. Ed. Gollanoz, I.
2 vols, 1908. (Lamb's Specimens. )
II. LISTS OF PLAYS AND DRAMATISTS.
Stationers' Company, Register of the, 1554-1560. Transcript by Arber, E.
5 vols. 1875-94. (Indispensable for all independent research. ] (Sta-
tioners' register. )
Henslowe's Diary. Ed. Greg, W. W. Part 1: Text. Part : Commentary.
1904. (The standard edition of the book. ] (Henslowe's Diary. )
Baker, D. E. Biographia Dramatica; or, A Companion to the Playhouse. . . .
Originally compiled, to the year 1764, by David Erskine Baker. Con-
tinued thence, to 1782, by Isaac Reed, and brought down to the end of
November, 1811 . . . by Stephen Jones. 3 vols. 1812. (Biographia
Dramatica. )
Davenport-Adams, W. A Dictionary of the Drama. Vol. I. 1904.
(Davenport-Adams. )
Fleay, F. G. A Biographical Chronicle of the English Drama, 1559-1642.
2 vols. 1891. (Fleay's English Drama. )
- A Chronicle History of the London Stage. 1890. [This earlier work
contains lists of performances and authors. ] (Fleay's Chronicle of
Stage. )
(Genest, J. ) Some Account of the English Stage, from the Restoration in
1660 to 1830. 10 vols Bath, 1832. (Genest. )
## p. 412 (#430) ############################################
412
Bibliography
Greg, W. W. A List of English Plays written before 1643 and printed
before 1700. Bibliographical Society. 1900. (Greg's List of Plays. )
A List of Masques, Pageants, &c. , supplementary to A List of English
Plays. Bibliographical Society. 1902. (Greg's List of Masques. )
Halliwell-Phillipps, J. 0. A Dictionary of Old English Plays. Being a
revision of Baker's Biographia Dramatica. 1860. (Halliwell's Dict. )
Hazlitt, W. C. Handbook to the Popular and Dramatic Literature of Great
Britain, with Supplements. 1867-90. (Hazlitt's Handbook. )
Langbaine, G. An Account of English Dramatic Poets. 1691. (Lang-
baine. ) Revised by Gildon, C. 1699.
Lowe, R. W. A Bibliographical Account of English Theatrical Literature.
1887. (Lowe. )
In addition to the above, the Catalogue of Printed Books in the British
Museum Library will of course be consulted, together with the following
catalogues of special collections :
Capell's Shakespeariana. Catalogue of the Books presented by Edward
Capell to the Library of Trinity College in Cambridge. Compiled by
Greg, W. W. Cambridge, 1903.
Chatsworth. A Catalogue of the Library at Chatsworth. (With preface by
Lacaita, Sir J. P. ) 4 vols. (Privately printed. ) 1879.
Dyce-Forster Collection. A Catalogue of the Printed Books and Manuscripts
bequeathed by the Rev. Alexander Dyce and John Forster. 2 vols. 1879.
III. HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH DRAMA.
Collier, J. P. History of English Dramatic Poetry. New ed. 3 vols. 1879.
(Largely superseded, especially in its earlier and in its concluding
portions, but still to some extent indispensable. ] (Collier. )
Jusserand, J. J. Le Théâtre en Angleterre jusqu'aux prédécesseurs im-
médiats de Shakespeare. 2nd ed. Paris, 1881. (Jusserand's Th. en A. )
Schelling, F. E. Elizabethan Drama. 2 vols. Boston and New York, 1908.
[Invaluable. ] (Schelling's Elizabethan Drama. )
Ward, A. W. History of English Dramatic Literature to the Death of
Queen Anne. 2nd ed. 3 vols. 1899. (Ward. )
For F. G. Fleay's works, which possess an enduring critical as well as
historical value, notwithstanding the excessive amount of conjecture contained
in them, see under sec. II above.
Baker, H. Barton. History of the London Stage and its famous Players.
1904.
Chambers, E. K. The Mediæval Stage. 2 vols. Oxford, 1903. (Chambers.
1 For the full title, which, if given above, would occupy a whole page, see biblio-
graphy. A very useful analysis of the contents of the book is to be found in Ward,
vol. I, pp. 241–3.
2 Thus the Table (40 pp. ), at the end of Histriomastic, forms, perhaps, the
best index to the whole controversy.
## p. 406 (#424) ############################################
406 The Puritan Attack upon the Stage
a
Plutarch, Horace and Cicero are found in company with the early
fathers as abhorrers of stage plays. This must not be taken as an
impeachment of Prynne's honesty. He was honest enough ; but
he often quotes at second hand, and, even when he had the
original before him, he was blinded by the force of zeal to anything
that conflicted with his argument - as what controversialist
is not?
Perhaps the most original thing about the book is its arrange-
ment. It is divided into two parts, and these, in turn, are sub-
divided into acts and scenes with an occasional chorus. This
dramatic setting, curious in a book written against the stage, was
intended to carry out the idea of The Actors Tragedie suggested
on the title-page; but, also, it was an extremely convenient form
for the purposes of the argument. The first act, for example,
naturally deals with the satanic origin of the theatre, while, in the
seventh, Prynne triumphantly marshals his mass of authorities
in seven different squadrons or scenes, according to period or
character, the whole being crowned with a chorus in which he
announces that none can withstand his 'all-conquering troopes. '
This plan of arrangement may owe something to Gosson's Playes
confuted in five Actions; but the execution and the details were
all Prynne's.
His book is the last of the series which we have to note.
Its size and elaboration, the supposed insult to the queen, the
celebrated trial and the sufferings of the author, must have
brought the topic of stage morality very much to the fore and
have greatly increased the bitterness of the puritan party. But
Histriomastix had no imitators. It had completely exhausted
the subject. Besides, it was now dangerous to write against the
theatre, since this involved the risk of offending royalty and of thus
falling into the inexorable hands of the high commission. Further
than this, events were fast drifting towards revolution, and the
minds of men were filled with other and greater matters than the
stage? Whether, as has been suggested, Prynne's attack did any-
thing to reform the stage, it would be extremely difficult to deter-
mine; and, in any case, the question is a somewhat idle one. Of
greater importance is the fact that the theatre was in a far from
prosperous condition immediately before its suppression, as is
clear from a curious little tract printed, in 1641, under the title
The Stage-Players Complaint.
1 This, probably, also accounts for the fact that Prynne's book, apparently, remained
unanswered until 1662, when Sir Richard Baker published his Theatrum Redivitum,
## p. 407 (#425) ############################################
The End of the Controversy
407
Monopolers are down, Projectors are down, the High Commission Court
is downe, the Starre Chamber is downe, and (some think) Bishops will be
downe and why should we then that are farre inferior to any of these not
justely feare that we should be downe too ?
Such is the burden of the author's tale, and the atmosphere of
impending disaster which pervades the tract appropriately culmi-
nates in the concluding words: From Plague, Pestilence and
Famine from Battel, Murder and Suddaine Death Good Lord
deliver us. ' Few contemporary documents give a better picture
of the gloom and sense of coming catastrophe that had come over
a large part of the nation at this juncture in our history. But the
words of the Litany were applicable to present needs and sorrows
as well as to future fears. The plague had been more than usually
violent since 1630, and, in consequence, the playhouses had been
shut for the greater part of each year. The net result of these
various factors in the situation was that the ordinance of
2 September 1642 for the total suppression of stage plays was
received, not only without surprise, but almost without attention.
In estimating parliament's reasons for this step, political consider-
ations should not be left out of account. The actor was now
hated, not only on account of his profession, but, also, as the
minion of the despot, and the passage just quoted shows that he
realised the fact well enough. Moreover, the stage, obviously, was
too dangerous an institution to be tolerated by any anti-royalist
government. Players were ‘malignants' almost to a man, and,
however efficient the censorship might be, the performance of an
apparently harmless play might easily develop into a demonstration
in favour of the king. Yet, for all this, we cannot doubt that the
main intentions of the act were moral. The stage was swept
away by the tide of puritan indignation and hatred, of which
we have been watching the rise.
It was not to be expected, however, that so drastic a measure
could be carried out without difficulty. Parliament found it
necessary in 1647 and, again, in 1648 to pass further and more
stringent ordinances against the stage, ordering all players to be
apprehended and publicly whipped, all playhouses to be pulled
down and any one present at a play to pay a fine of five shillings.
Protests were not wanting against this policy. In 1643, two tracts
appeared : one, The Actors Remonstrance, a humble request for
the restoration of acting rights in return for sweeping reforms,
which, incidentally, gives an interesting glimpse of what went on
behind the scenes of theatrical life; the other, The Players
## p. 408 (#426) ############################################
408 The Puritan Attack upon the Stage
Petition to the Parliament, a piece of satirical verse, which
mocked at the Rump under pretence of appealing to it. The
sauciness of the latter, however, was nothing to that of an un-
known person who, at the beginning of 1649, actually published
a book called Mr William Prynne, his defence of Stage-Playes.
or a Retraction of his former book. Needless to say, the in-
a
dignant victim of this effrontery at once issued a denial of the
charge?
We have now enumerated and described the chief documents
and events relating to the puritan campaign against the stage,
culminating in the victory of 1642. The controversy has never really
died out. It burst forth again in all its old vigour and with all
its characteristic pedantry at the end of the seventeenth century.
Curiously enough it was a high Anglican non-juror, Jeremy Collier,
upon whose shoulders the puritan mantle fell; and his example
was followed, thirty years later, by yet another Jacobite, William
Law, the author of A Serious Call. Even modern writers
have found it difficult to discuss the Elizabethan stage without
ardently defending the puritans who attacked it. Yet the in-
fluence which the early fathers, like distanţ planets, seemed
to exert upon every puritan in turn, the wholesale manner
in which each borrows the arguments and expressions of his pre-
decessor and, above all, the almost complete ignorance displayed
by a large proportion of the assailants as to the real character of
the institution they were attacking, combine to give the whole
discussion an air of academic unreality. This impression, perhaps,
is partly due to controversial methods which appealed forcibly to
the Elizabethan intelligence, but which, by exasperating the
modern reader, blind him to the genuine feeling that lies under
their antiquated and absurd forms. For there can be no doubt
whatever that puritan antipathy amounted to a fierce loathing,
of whose strength a generation living in blander times cannot
have any conception. In a word, the whole movement, from the
outset, was not one for reforming the theatre but for abolishing it.
Proposals for reform came rather from those who wrote in defence
of the theatre, and whose attitude, it may be observed, was, in one
sense, singularly in accord with that of their opponents. In
1 The fortunes of the players under the Commonwealth may be followed in
some detail in James Wright's Historia Histrionica 1699 (reprinted in Hazlitt's
Dodsley (vol. xv), and in Whitelocke's Memorials. It is, perhaps, worth noticing
here that, in 1658, William Cartwright found courage to reprint Heywood's Apology,
under the title an Actor's Vindication.
!
## p. 409 (#427) ############################################
General Aspects of the Controversy 409
the modern sense of the word, at least, they were puritans to
a man. The stage-hater stoutly maintained that the drama did
not and could not fulfil any ethical function. On the other hand,
Bavande, Wager, Lodge, Gager, Nashe and Heywood, one and
all, regarded the drama, first and foremost, as an engine for
moral instruction. That such a man as Heywood should express
himself thus, proves that he had scarcely more understanding than
Stubbes and Prynne of the real nature of the drama which he
represented. No one can pretend that Shakespeare and his fellow
playwrights troubled themselves about theories of conduct. The
defenders of the stage made pitiful attempts to justify their craft
upon moral principles; but, in admitting the subordination of art
to ethics, they had yielded their whole position. Had puritans
only studied the theatre more and the early fathers less, they
might, starting with the premisses which their antagonists gave
them, have made out a much better case for prosecution. They
had all the logic on their side. On the side of the apologists,
.
was all the commonsense-if they could only have seen it !
## p. 410 (#428) ############################################
BIBLIOGRAPHIES
GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
VOLS. V AND VI
It may be well, without attempting to do over again part of a task
admirably accomplished by Schelling, F. E. , in the Bibliographical Essay con-
tained in vol. 11 of his Elizabethan Drama, 1558-1642, Boston and New York,
1908, to point out that the bibliographies to the several chapters of the present
volume and its predecessor repeatedly refer to certain works which more or
less cover the whole of the period in question. These works will ordinarily
be cited in the separate bibliographies by the abbreviations added in italics to
the titles in the following lists.
I. COLLECTIONS OF PLAYS.
(This does not include series of volumes of which each contains the plays,
or a selection from the plays, of a single author. )
Amyot, T. and others. A Supplement to Dodsley's Old English Plays.
4 vols. 1853. (Amyot's Suppl. to Dodsley. )
Bang, W. Materialien zur Kunde des älteren englischen Dramas. Louvain,
1902, etc. (In progress. ) (Bang's Materialien. )
Brandl, A. Quellen des weltlichen Dramas in England vor Shakespeare.
Vol. Lxxx of Quellen u. Forschungen zur Sprach- u. Culturgesch, d.
German. Völker. Strassburg, 1898. (Brandls Quellen. )
Bullen, A. H. A Collection of Old English Plays. 4 vols. 1882-5. (Bullen's
Old English Plays. )
Old English Plays. New Series. 3 vols. 1887-90. (Bullen's Old
English Plays, N. S. )
Child, F. J. Four Old Plays. Cambridge, Mass. , 1848. (Four Old Plays. )
Collier, J. P. Five Old Plays illustrative of the early Progress of the
English Drama: The Conflict of Conscience; The Three Triumphs of
Love and Fortune; The Three Ladies of London; The Three Lords and
the Three Ladies of London; A Knack to Know a Knave. Ed. for the
Roxburghe Club. 1851. (Five Old Plays. )
Dilke, (Sir) C. W. Old English Plays; being a selection from the early
dramatic writers. 6 vols. 1814-5. (Dilke's 0. E. P. )
Dodsley's Old English Plays. Ed. Hazlitt, W. C. 15 vols. 1874-6. (Hazlitt's
Dodsley. )
Earlier editions:
A Select Collection of Old Plays. [Ed. by R. D. ) 12 vols. 1744.
(Dodsley (1744). )
## p. 411 (#429) ############################################
General Bibliography
411
A Select Collection of Old Plays. [By R. D. ) Ed. Reed, I. 12 vols.
1780. (Reed's Dodsley. )
A Select Collection of Old Plays. [By R. D. ) New ed. with additional
notes and corrections by the late Isaac Reed, Octavius Gilchrist
and the editor (John Payne Collier). 12 vols. 1825-7. (Collier's
Dodsley. )
Early English Drama Society, Publications of the. Ed. Farmer, J. S. 1906 f.
(E. E. D. Publ. )
Gayley, C. M. Representative English Comedies. With introductory essays,
notes &c. by various writers, under the editorship of C. M. Gayley. From
the beginnings to Shakespeare. Vol. 1. New York, 1903. (Gayley's
R. E. C. )
Hawkins, T. The Origin of the English Drama. 3 vols. Oxford, 1773.
(Origin of E. D. )
Malone Society, Publications of the. 1906, etc. (Malone S. Publ. )
Manly, J. M.
Specimens of Pre-Shaksperean Drama. With an intro-
duction, notes and glossary. Vols. I and 11. Boston, 1897-8. New ed.
1900-3. (Manly's Specimens. )
Old English Drama. 3 vols. 1830. (Old E. D. )
Scott, (Sir) Walter. Ancient British Drama. 3 vols. 1810. (Ancient B. D. )
Modern British Drama. 5 vols. 1811. (Modern B. D. )
Simpson, R. The School of Shakspere. 2 vols. 1878. (Simpson. )
Six Old Plays on which Shakespeare founded his Measure for Measure.
Comedy of Errors. The Taming of the Shrew. King John. King
Henry IV and King Henry V. King Lear. 2 vols. 1779. (Six Old
Plays. )
Tudor Facsimile Texts. Old Plays and other Printed and MS. Rarities.
Ed. Farmer, J. S. 43 vols. 1907, etc. [In progress. ] (Tudor Fac-
simile Texts. )
Lamb, Charles. Specimens of English Dramatic Poets. Ed. Gollanoz, I.
2 vols, 1908. (Lamb's Specimens. )
II. LISTS OF PLAYS AND DRAMATISTS.
Stationers' Company, Register of the, 1554-1560. Transcript by Arber, E.
5 vols. 1875-94. (Indispensable for all independent research. ] (Sta-
tioners' register. )
Henslowe's Diary. Ed. Greg, W. W. Part 1: Text. Part : Commentary.
1904. (The standard edition of the book. ] (Henslowe's Diary. )
Baker, D. E. Biographia Dramatica; or, A Companion to the Playhouse. . . .
Originally compiled, to the year 1764, by David Erskine Baker. Con-
tinued thence, to 1782, by Isaac Reed, and brought down to the end of
November, 1811 . . . by Stephen Jones. 3 vols. 1812. (Biographia
Dramatica. )
Davenport-Adams, W. A Dictionary of the Drama. Vol. I. 1904.
(Davenport-Adams. )
Fleay, F. G. A Biographical Chronicle of the English Drama, 1559-1642.
2 vols. 1891. (Fleay's English Drama. )
- A Chronicle History of the London Stage. 1890. [This earlier work
contains lists of performances and authors. ] (Fleay's Chronicle of
Stage. )
(Genest, J. ) Some Account of the English Stage, from the Restoration in
1660 to 1830. 10 vols Bath, 1832. (Genest. )
## p. 412 (#430) ############################################
412
Bibliography
Greg, W. W. A List of English Plays written before 1643 and printed
before 1700. Bibliographical Society. 1900. (Greg's List of Plays. )
A List of Masques, Pageants, &c. , supplementary to A List of English
Plays. Bibliographical Society. 1902. (Greg's List of Masques. )
Halliwell-Phillipps, J. 0. A Dictionary of Old English Plays. Being a
revision of Baker's Biographia Dramatica. 1860. (Halliwell's Dict. )
Hazlitt, W. C. Handbook to the Popular and Dramatic Literature of Great
Britain, with Supplements. 1867-90. (Hazlitt's Handbook. )
Langbaine, G. An Account of English Dramatic Poets. 1691. (Lang-
baine. ) Revised by Gildon, C. 1699.
Lowe, R. W. A Bibliographical Account of English Theatrical Literature.
1887. (Lowe. )
In addition to the above, the Catalogue of Printed Books in the British
Museum Library will of course be consulted, together with the following
catalogues of special collections :
Capell's Shakespeariana. Catalogue of the Books presented by Edward
Capell to the Library of Trinity College in Cambridge. Compiled by
Greg, W. W. Cambridge, 1903.
Chatsworth. A Catalogue of the Library at Chatsworth. (With preface by
Lacaita, Sir J. P. ) 4 vols. (Privately printed. ) 1879.
Dyce-Forster Collection. A Catalogue of the Printed Books and Manuscripts
bequeathed by the Rev. Alexander Dyce and John Forster. 2 vols. 1879.
III. HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH DRAMA.
Collier, J. P. History of English Dramatic Poetry. New ed. 3 vols. 1879.
(Largely superseded, especially in its earlier and in its concluding
portions, but still to some extent indispensable. ] (Collier. )
Jusserand, J. J. Le Théâtre en Angleterre jusqu'aux prédécesseurs im-
médiats de Shakespeare. 2nd ed. Paris, 1881. (Jusserand's Th. en A. )
Schelling, F. E. Elizabethan Drama. 2 vols. Boston and New York, 1908.
[Invaluable. ] (Schelling's Elizabethan Drama. )
Ward, A. W. History of English Dramatic Literature to the Death of
Queen Anne. 2nd ed. 3 vols. 1899. (Ward. )
For F. G. Fleay's works, which possess an enduring critical as well as
historical value, notwithstanding the excessive amount of conjecture contained
in them, see under sec. II above.
Baker, H. Barton. History of the London Stage and its famous Players.
1904.
Chambers, E. K. The Mediæval Stage. 2 vols. Oxford, 1903. (Chambers.
